Saturday, 15 April 2017

April is National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo) and we are half way through! It may seem a mad idea, but aiming to write a poem a day for a month has its benefits. I last did this exercise in 2013 when I wrote something new every day of the month and spent the following weeks -- and months -- revising and reworking. It was a long time before I began another brand new poem, however!

This year I am approaching the month very differently. For a start I am working to prompts, which I didn't before. The prompts put up on the NaPoWriMo section of The Poetry School webite are excellent and the NaPoWriMo website itself has some helpful ones. As well as offering useful triggers to get us writing, both sites also suggest poems to read in association with the prompts, and there are sometimes interviews with poets to view or listen to. It's so important to read if you want to write.

And this year we also have the excellent NaPoReMo (READ a poem a day) blog from poet Jo Bell, which gives us a new poem to read every day, together with comments and analysis.

If a prompt, or reading of another poem, sends me to an old poem of mine that needs revising, I go there on the day and do that work.
If a new poem is sparked I do that. So far it's working out at about 50/50, which is OK. The month is helping me to work on poetry every day and to feel I am at least 'getting somewhere'. Not sure where that is, but it is not where started, it is somewhere else ...

If you are a poet and fancy joining in, it's not too late, just jump in now! The links I have mentioned are below, and they will also lead you to any number of online closed groups on Facebook and elsewhere where poets are sharing their new poetry this month and finding ways to work together to improve their technique.

Here's today's poem from me, a 'found poem' from my Twitter feed, kicked off by the Poetry School prompt -- 'Technology Day'.